


Fault Line

by WakeUpDreaming



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Annabeth and Piper are everything to me, Best Friends, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Post The Burning Maze, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 02:49:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18379406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WakeUpDreaming/pseuds/WakeUpDreaming
Summary: When Annabeth parks the rental car, Piper doesn’t even move.Walking up the driveway, Annabeth can’t decide what to say, how to say it, or if anything should be said at all. Instead, she just sits next to Piper.





	Fault Line

**Author's Note:**

> To accompany this, I would recommend the song Beside You by Marianas Trench.

When Annabeth sees her, she’s sitting on her front steps. She’s bruised, battered. Broken.

When Annabeth parks the rental car, Piper doesn’t even move.

Walking up the driveway, Annabeth can’t decide what to say, how to say it, or if anything should be said at all. Instead, she just sits next to Piper.

It feels like hours before either of them speaks, and Annabeth can only tell the time has been less by the slow descent of the sun against the Oklahoma horizon.

“I always figured it would be me.”

Annabeth turns to Piper. It’s a voice she’s never heard from Piper. Gruff, bitter, hopeless. That one, hopeless, is what really hits her. Piper’s never been this devastated before. “You?”

“Who would die early,” Piper says, and it’s so matter of fact it takes Annabeth a second to register the meaning. She’s still staring straight ahead when she continues, “No, don’t get all weird about it. We all know I’ve always been the one with the least formidable powers, the fragile one. The princess.” She rolls her eyes, and Annabeth catches a glimpse of Piper’s most recent pair of converse – now singed black on one heel. “I never thought it would be him.”

Annabeth steadies herself. “Piper, you’re just as strong – hell, your charmspeak alone is more powerful than anything I have.”

“That’s not true,” Piper sighs. “I’ve always been a burden. I’m just a reminder of all the ways we almost failed.”

“Piper, none of us -”

The heat in her eyes, the color drained from them, is what stops Annabeth’s sentence. “None of us what, Annabeth? None of us should have lived? None of us should have died? None of us should have been born?” She laughs, something grating and bitter, echoing on the porch with the same jolting, misplaced feel as a fire alarm. “There’s no reason or meaning for anything, Annabeth. Nothing means anything. We’re just here, pawns of gods who don’t care about any of us. And I’ve made every mistake to get us here.” Annabeth is watching Piper closely – there’s got to be some crack in this wall, some sort of fault line Annabeth can press just right to help it break. Something she can do to bring her best friend back.

“You haven’t responded to any of us,” Annabeth says quietly. “Not since Jason.”

Piper shakes her head. “Been busy. School.”

“That’s not it.”

Piper turns away from Annabeth, staring out in the still fading sunlight.

“Your – your dad’s talked to me.”

Piper doesn’t react.

“He’s worried, Piper. You’re not eating. You’re not doing anything but going to school and sleeping. You’re  - you aren’t you.”

“Wish I wasn’t,” Piper mutters, and it’s so quiet Annabeth half thinks she wasn’t meant to hear it.

“I’m glad you are,” Annabeth insists, and she feels her lungs tighten. “You are.” She closes her eyes, because she doesn’t know the words. “Piper, you’re important.”

She shakes her head. “Not like he was.”

“Just like he was. Just like he still is.” Annabeth gives up on holding herself back. “Piper, we lost one of our best friends. Jason – Jason was an amazing person, an amazing friend. A hero and a martyr who died saving the world.” She exhales, her breathing shaky, her eyes wet. “And then we heard – that from Leo, that he – and that you were okay but…” She feels the first tear drop. “Piper, you never said a word.”

She watches. She watches closely, because she thinks she may have found the fault line.

“We lost Jason,” she says, refusing to hide the grief in her voice, “but we won’t lose you, too.”

There it is. That fault. That crack.

Piper’s shoulders drop – just a tiny bit.

She keeps pushing. “I have always told you – I’ll be the one to bury the body if you need me to. I’ll wake up to any phone call, any time. I love you, Piper, because you’re the one person who saved me when I couldn’t save myself, when Percy was gone and I was shattered and sometimes I just wanted to give up.” She shifts her whole body. “And when Percy and I got out of Tartarus, when the war was over, you were the one who made sure we didn’t wake up alone from night terrors. If you think you’re not important,” Annabeth shakes her head, “I know I wouldn’t be here without you.”

It’s minutes before Piper says, “I’m glad I could help you guys. But I’m the reason he’s gone.”

“No!” Annabeth insists. “You’re the one we didn’t lose.”

“Every minute of every day, I think about what I mean, how much I’ve done to make things worse,” Piper says, and she seems a little more like herself, a little closer to living. “I broke up with him, because I wasn’t sure. Because I didn’t know what I wanted.” She closes her eyes, squeezing them shut. “And now, I broke his heart, and hurt him, and then I’m the reason he’s gone. I’ll never get a chance to see if I’m sure.” She wraps her arms around her middle, holding herself tightly enough that Annabeth worries that it might hurt. “And, for you guys, I’m a reminder of how he died.”

“No,” Annabeth says, “you’re a reminder of how he lived.”

Piper turns back to her. “Annabeth, I didn’t know I could hurt so much.”

And she crumples.

Annabeth catches her best friend in her arms as she sobs, wailing with a grief Annabeth doesn’t know. Tristan and Mellie blast out of the front door at the sound, Gleeson not far behind with Baby Chuck on his shoulder, but they calm immediately when they see Annabeth looking up at them.

They step back into the house silently and close the door, leaving Piper safe in Annabeth’s arms in the last light of the day.

**Author's Note:**

> This book annihilated me and I am so sad.


End file.
